The Fleecing of the Burgers, Part I

This is the first in a series of posts that will track how the Burger family bleeds money due to corporate greed, our ineptitude, laziness or naïveté. There are some things that are worth the time and effort to pursue, and some that are not.

About an hour ago, I climbed down from our roof, which was leaking this afternoon, after a couple feet of snow followed by 1/2-3/4 inch of rain last night. Most of the snow had melted, and it wasn't all that deep on the roof to start with, so there was a maximum of about 3 inches of snow/ice/water up there. OK, so what? Why the hell was I up on the roof, and what does this have to do with the fleecing of the Burgers? Well, this is a new roof. A very expensive, flat, rubber roof with fancy copper flashing and drip-edge flashing. A new roof that was installed less than a month ago, and which started leaking this afternoon, after all of the rain last night.

As I was up there, watching the beautiful sunset view, I felt a little like Par Ingalls (must use the r sound to bridge two vowels when in Massachusetts.) One false move with a 15-pound load of ice chunks, and whoop! I fall 12-35 feet to my hospitalization-death, depending on which side of the house I fall off. Luckily, the edges of the roof are slanted up at the edge, to allow water to flow toward the roof drain. So I would plant my front (left) foot, placing most of my weight there, and shove with my shovel arm from about 3-4 feet away from the edge. I was on the roof for a good hour and a half, and got it all shoveled off (with a plastic shovel, of course.)

OK, boo hoo hoo, my new roof leaks. And it was expensive. So what does this have to do with the fleecing of the Burgers? The fleecing in this case comes from the initial lowball estimate from the contractor, and the subsequent tacking on of the copper drip-edge flashing. Originally we thought we would be able to use the original flashing, but oh, no, it's not wide enough, we'll never be able to save it. OK, ouch (a 23% increase in the original quote)! But save the old copper for me. OK. Where's the old copper? Oh one of the guys took it. All right, what ever, man, just finish the job already!

It turned out that on the lower of our two rooves, there was nothing between the roof decking and our playroom "carpet" (just that Berber stuff that everyone who wants to throw down carpet when selling a house installs.) So when the workers took up the old tar and gravel roof, large amounts of ground up tar (a.k.a. soot) fell down between the cracks in the roof decking into our house. Lovely. The guy asked me if I wanted him to clean it. Yeah sure, go ahead, tromp in here with your boots, and do a half-assed job. Yeah, that would be great. So we vacuumed many times, and even brought in a carpet cleaning service. We had guests for Thanksgiving, and then had a big party the following weekend. Not that anyone would have noticed, but at least we did our best.

So am I going to sue this guy, or get him to pay for the carpet cleaning? No. Why? Because, (a) I want him to fix the damn roof; and (b) it would take more time out of my life, and I would rather waste time writing about it than waste time arguing and taking days off to go to small claims court.

Speaking of which, our delicious Christmas Eve dinner of fondue and champagne interrupted this post, and now it's time to go watch IAWL with the family. Merry Christmas!

Next up: Verizon Fios.